The Darkness Of Limbo And Ico’s Cooperation Come Together In Monochroma

Atmosphere is one of the most difficult attributes in videogames, and Kickstarted game Monochroma is hoping to get it right. Billing itself as Ico meets Limbo, the side-scrolling adventure puzzle game is trying to push all the atmospheric buttons it can.

Developers Nowhere Studios’ game will star you as an older brother, following and helping your younger brother through the world and to its end in an alternate, industrial-alchemic 1950s world. While out playing in the woods, they spot something unspeakable by a corporation that’s building robots for mankind.

While moving about, the younger brother gets injured along the way, adding a new layer to the realistic physics puzzles for players—you’ll have to carry him along, Ico-style. He’s scared of the dark, though, requiring you to solve puzzles where putting him down in sources of light is necessary for awhile. The monochrome world is splashed with red, which might seem overused, but still makes for great contrast in the stark and dystopic world here.

There’s a meaty demo available on their Kickstarter page, and the game’s also on Steam Greenlight and almost ready for purchase. The game is expected to last about six hours with some 60 odd puzzles to complete.

Now that Child Of Light is being ported to Vita, I kinda expect all of these indie games to be ported as well.

Andrew Boyce

Another indie game that rips off the Limbo aesthetic with puzzle solving elements? What, are the boys gonna lose their innocence too and become murderers? And its a game based around a big escort mission. It worked for Ico cause you knew Yorda had a bigger fate than immediately apparent. No thanks. No thanks.

T-X

You do know Limbo’s aesthetic is a rip off in itself right?

I remember playing a flash game made by this deviant artist about a silhouetted lost boy in an abandoned wilderness that led up to a sky city and then back down to an abandoned shack. Secret tunnel that led to a sword in the ground implying a grave mark of a fallen whoever and having to avoid a worm monster. There was another similar that started in a piano room (I could’ve gotten them mixed up)

I played this years before Limbo was even released mind you. This is the same situation when games like Angry Birds get huge but old flash games with the same mechanics that were out years before are lost in the annals of the internet flash game scene. You obviously don’t have to play this game but your argument of originality could most likely be applied to your favorite games as well.

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